September - our worst ever fire.
Our research project is located in a hostile environment. We know about vandalism.
Musical Introduction
In 1980, the first plastic tree guards entered the ecosystem of the UK. At the same time, Bauhaus released their first album ‘In the Flat Field’ which spent one week at Number 72 in the album chart. The album sank in a deluge of negative reviews from rock journalists of almost every kind, and while it did reach Number 1 in the Indie album chart, the initial results were very disappointing to the band. Meanwhile, the plastic tree guard was hailed as a practical, helpful innovation. Such irony.
I do get bored, I get bored! In the Flat Field. I get bored, I do get bored! In the Flat Field.
These lines are now, like the tree guards of the same year, over 40 years old. I’m told the lyrics refer to the adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) of the artist. Apparently, the author of the song was made to watch his uncle doing archery practice on a bleak and empty playing field every weekend. The song claims that these adverse childhood experiences caused the artist to become, to put it simply, stunted. It may be metaphor, and the rest of the lyrics are unintelligible to me. The thing to remember about Bauhaus lyrics is that it’s all about theatrics, performance and just being a lunatic. It’s experimental and disturbing, and as such it’s ethical only because it is art. So enough about that.
We’ll never really know whether deer, who don’t live in fear of wolves in Scotland, experience a boredom that leads to the destruction of trees. Similarly, we’ll never really know whether our young rascals who set fires, who do not live in fear of the police, experience a boredom that leads to vandalism. It would be tempting to find out how a landscape of fear would affect deer and young vandal behaviour, but I draw the line at creating a terror-state where wolves and policemen purge the community of anyone who looks a bit disgruntled. Our ethical standards will be vigorously maintained - until the funding runs out!
Bored in the Flat Fields of Buckhaven.
In the picture, you can see a whole night’s work - taking out the wooden stakes and burning them in a pile. Some of us believe that a portion of the tree stakes have been commercially purloined but I don’t believe that, most and probably all, have been burnt on site. The plastic tree guards have become useless trash scattered across the plantation. The chaotic, partially burnt, wooden debris is evidence that the fire brigade attended the fire, probably in the dark, and sprayed it with a high pressure hose. I’m not complaining, and as “anti-social” fires go this one in April 2021 was one of the more pleasant fires. This photo, I now see, is from the good old days when fires were wood fires, and the smoke reminded me of Scout camp.
When the tree stakes ran out we entered the era of the wheelie bin fire. There is an unfounded myth that the fumes of a wheelie bin fire get you high. The difference between getting high and getting poisoned are not properly understood by some young people. A wheelie bin on fire produces carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide in lethal amounts. It is simply poisonous and let’s not even think about the microplastics released into the air. Wheelie bins that have burned in Bat’s Wood were often not empty: baby’s nappies, shoes, clothes, toys, bedding, toiletries, a lot of tree guards, food and cleaning products - who knows what fumes are come off a wheelie bin inferno? A wheelie bin fire is like a box of toxic chocolates…
Wheelie bins are made of HDPE plastic, when it burns some of it melts and melds with soil and whatever it touches. This creates a new strata of sediment deposit unique to our era, the Anthropocene. Geologists have written about these ‘technofossils’ but they are not responsible for why nobody seems able to do anything about it. They weren’t being glib, it’s a simple fact that the world is quickly being covered in a death-mask of plastic. It will take more than a geologist to stop this from happening.
Over the past few years I have learned to respect the toxicity of the mess from a fire and leave at least a week between finding it and clearing it up. The American nature writer Aldo Leopold1, died of a heart attack while attending a fire on his neighbour’s farm. I have learned to use a respirator mask as well as good gloves, I worry about the times when I did not use the right equipment and when I saw young people playing in the toxic aftermath of these fires.
I have seen many people become upset by these sights of pointless destruction. If it helps, I believe the people responsible will become ashamed of their actions, even if they are not prosecuted. They will one day worry about the long term consequences of the pollution they have caused, if only to their own health and that of the as yet unborn. I myself have never gotten angry about the fires. I see it as simply another of the thousands of problems in a system, like deer overgrazing and soil that hasn’t got enough worms.
People talk about “levelling up”, but anyone can do it. There’s quite a difference in “level” between a school with burnt wheelie bins and a school that does not have burnt wheelie bins. This is difference-making of the most straight-forward type, and I know it’s not strategic but what’s the point of strategy when there’s a burnt wheelie bin right in front of your nose? When this picture of me arrived on Google Earth, Street View - I felt proud of myself. I am now preserved in digital amber. It is a beautiful day at Bat’s Wood and I am in a good quality respirator mask. As I spend so much time on site clearing stuff away, I have been taking extra precautions against getting poisoned by the pollution. Some of the smells can make you feel ill for days if you’re not careful.
Our immortal wheelie bins need better life chances.
A wheelie bin could last for a thousand years of normal daily use. Each wheelie bin costs £50 to replace. This seems more than good value for what should be an heirloom passed down the generations.
What did Uncle Aldo leave you in his will? You’re hoping it’s the set of wheelie bins - he must have known you’d want them! You are to be disappointed. Your cousin, Greta, got them. She's a safer pair of hands let's face it.
Of course, that’s not what really happens. If your wheelie bin goes up in smoke, you just phone the Council and you get another, free including delivery and no questions asked. There is probably a huge container ship, steaming through the Suez Canal right now, loaded with wheelie bins just to replace the ones stolen and burnt across the UK. It seems that the tax-payer is responsible for paying for everyone’s wheelie bin whether they keep it safely or let someone burn it in a school playground.
Fire is a fascinating thing, it’s a natural process and part of the ecology of a place. I know the plastic pollution is no good and these photos look awful but plants have a way of finding a way back. Most fire damage, adequately cleared of wreckage, disappears under the leaves and grasses. There is a benefit to the soil in the form of carbon deposits (charcoal) which really improves soil quality. This foam like carbon holds moisture and minerals which plants love. In Africa, climate scientists are looking at these deposits as the hidden benefits of grassland fires.
There is something primordial about having a fire outside. Doing them responsibly, with minimal smoke and a “leave-no-trace” ethic is bread and butter to the growing army of outdoor educators. There is consensus that outdoor learning is a way for schools treat the mental health catastrophe that has swept the UK since 2010: when technology started to fundamentally rewire childhood - moving our children’s play to phones. When the Early Learning Centre disappeared from Kirkcaldy High Street, that’s when we parents should have chained ourselves to the railings!!
Bored in a Landscape of Rage.
The landscape of rage has young people raging about doing quite visible damage. It has deer raging about doing quite visible damage. And when the dog-walkers see quite visible damage, they too spit fire. With all this rage about, and I’ve got my own problems, I’m reluctant to add any more fuel to the flames by engaging in rage. I am bored with rage. Rage, I can work with but it’s a tricky customer. You never quite know how it’s going to unfold.
There was this youngster who let’s say, didn’t engage well at school. He liked pit-bikes and motorbikes of all kinds, so I thought I might interest him with the news that a motorbike had been found burnt at Bat’s Wood. His laser-focused interest was turned to utter disquiet when he found that the motorbike was one he’d sold a few months earlier. Nobody saw him for the rest of the day, from what I can tell, the destruction was interpreted as disturbing customer feedback. The landscape of rage contains complexities and troubles that are not predictable.
Actually, I did shout in rage one time. It was right back at the start of the project in 2018. A pair of school pupils were attempting to cut down one of our most significant hawthorns. My yell drove the two boys away. You can see the damage. I expected the tree to die as a result of being half severed. But this was not the case, the tree recovered with a huge bulge of protective tree growth and today, you’d never know it had nearly fallen on some pupils. In the UK, 6 people per year are killed by trees falling on them, I don’t know how many were carrying saws at the time but I imagine it’s not zero.
My friend Joe was nearly killed by a tree. He was in intensive care for several months but the person he was with was not so lucky, he died instantly at the scene. Joe was in the passenger seat of a Porsche going at high speed on a stormy night but none of that matters, his point is that trees should be held to account for the damage they cause by getting in the way. That’s his point of view.
Summary: a hostile environment.
Bat’s Wood sits in an area which has some of the most deprived neighbourhoods in Scotland. Antisocial behaviour is common on some streets. The project so far has kept itself relatively hidden in the middle of Bat’s Wood but one of the aims of this project is to see what happens when it is planted in a more exposed and visible part of the community. We hope that the community accepts Willow Worlds and can live with it.
Fighting that sinking feeling - Sept 2024.
Social media alerted a former pupil (JT), whose mother (LT) alerted me - Bat’s Wood was on fire again. Fife Jammers (a Facebook page for curtain twitchers) had some ominous blurry night-time footage.
But then I relaxed, the optics had been deceptive in the past. I remembered long ago there was a horrible photo of a sharpened stick which some young ‘Rambo’ had left stuck in one of my paths at Bat’s Wood. The online fear was “it could have injured a dog”.
In the Case of the Pointed Sticks, I had dropped everything to investigate. Facebook had us believing that some sicko was creeping around in Bat’s Wood hoping to impale dogs on sharpened tree trunks. Nobody was there. I found the stick and another one, both about 5 inches in length. The stick in the photo looked pretty unsafe but, it wasn’t very. The pointed stick was stuck in the ground so badly that it was hardly more dangerous than a fallen branch.
The “Worst Fire” - September 2024.
The next day there was a text from Susan Hollins, a local resident, who said she’d taken 81 photographs:
“OK maybe I should have a look after all,” I thought.
In the field next door, the farmer had been cutting hay and this had attracted a teenage fire-bug. He’d run along the fence with a bottle of lighter fluid in 3 places, each about 50 metres long. The inferno consumed the western edge of Bat’s Wood between Buckhaven and Methilhill. His name was reported to the police, he was barely a teenager.
I estimated the damage as follows:
Our tree nursery is gone: 50 small trees in pots all burnt to a crisp. 40 native trees, each approx 3-5 years old - mostly hawthorn, blackthorn and rowan. 35 orchard trees, each approx 15 years old, planted 6 years ago, bought then for £17 each, now not replaceable. Total losses: between £1300-1600 in replacement value. But they won't be replaced - we're not insured against this. We won't know what could have been, but can say we've lost a lot of good fruit.
Aftermath.
It’s too early to talk about the aftermath but thanks to Susan’s photos we have a good record of the situation in the days after the fire. A setback for sure.
I have some questions:
Which of the damaged trees are going to survive?
How long will the plants take to re-green the ground?
Is this a ‘blip’ in the fire-raising here, or is it going to get worse?
What action will be taken to address this crime?
Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac (1949) is an American classic well worth a look. This Substack owes a lot to this book, this will be obvious when you read it.
A cull of deer happened in 2010 at Diageo. I believe they culled around 15-20 roe deer due to finding some dead around the plant (the deer were fenced in) due to in-breeding causing disease.
What a difference being informed could really make. Great article Duncan.